Well put.

To continue the analogy of Druid -> Rogue, a Resto Druid using a Feral weapon should expect diminished utility of that weapon just as a dagger rogue should expect diminished utility from using a Sword rather than a Dagger.

The amount that the utility is diminished may be vastly different between Dagger w/Sword Rogue vs Resto w/Feral weapon but.... same (very) basic idea.

HotW is a fundamental feral DPS talent. A warrior could spec arms and not pick up mortal strike, and run around auto attacking every 3.6s; but that would make him stupid, not nerfed.

Resto druids arent built to do melee dps. A resto speced druid should see scaling declines in his melee dps ability as compared to feral druids or any other class who spec for melee dps; otherwise, what is the point of having specs in the first place?

Don't confuse being a moron with needing a buff.

A prot warrior who is running around with a two handed weapon, despite no instant (except ww I guess), and getting no benefit from one handed weapon spec or devastate, is also quite stupid. Two handed weapons are useless to a protection warrior... and that is why we dont complain that its undervalued. We understand that we are not meant to do certain things, such as swinging two handers; there is no point in trying to do something you are specifically specced to be bad at, and then complaining that youre bad at it.

Again, don't confuse being a moron with needing a buff.

One could also say that warriors get 19% less AP than druids per strength if deep wounds is capable of doing any damage at all. Any spec that can use a two hander has no +10% attack power or +10% strength talent.

To be fair, a warrior with 500 str and a gorehowl does in fact get a bigger gain from deep wounds than they would from 10% str or ap. However, a warrior with 500 str, 250 agi, and a gorehowl would see MASSIVELY better dps getting 1 AP per agi on top of strength than they would see from deep wounds.

The problem is that discussing itemization outside the context of the abilities using them is totally and completely meaningless. It's like saying MS warriors do more damage than rogues because they're swinging 120 dps 2H weapons while rogues are using 90 dps weapons. Itemization by itself doesn't make the slightest bit of difference. It's itemization in the context of class abilities that matters.

And, for the record, I wasn't trying to start a rogue vs druid thing. I was just pointing out the previous poster who was asserting that rogues have more utility in raids because we can sap was full of it. Which is true. Not totally relevant to the topic at hand, but then again, as just discussed, almost nothing in this thread is actually relevant to the question at hand so I didn't figure that should disqualify me from responding to it. Besides, if you'd actually read my post, you'd note that I wasn't (as you assert) complaining, simply asserting the relative benefits of the two classes.


Besides which, it *is* a useful question to consider. The question at hand is whether druids are going to remain viable in the long hall, and the answer to that question depends on a) scaling of dps vs other dps class and b) scaling of tps vs other tanking classes - both of which are related to the weapon damage assertions, but also c) on how important the druid utility skills will be in the long haul. If, as a stupid example, after some point all raid encounters need only one tank, then the feral druid tank vs dps utility matters significantly less, and their damage would need to increase for them to remain useful.

Long story short: to get a useful answer to an actually interesting question (namely, are feral druids going to scale well enough to remain viable into the indefenitely future), one must consider all facets of the question - not just those that specifically refer to weapon itemization. Because if all you want to do is discuss the scaling of weapons per se, I can answer that easily. Druid weapons don't scale as well. Proof: read first post. That said: this only matters if it actually converts to a loss of raid viability in time, which requires inspection of these other issues that are being raised.

Okay, I'll bite. If the Pillar of Ferocity was re-evaluated so that the amount of FAP added onto the weapon was based off 55 + FAP/14 = 130.5, you get an increase of 231 AP from its current value. 231 AP for a feral specced Druid does the following for a 12 second Mangle cycle assuming 1 Shred crit:

4 shreds = 148.5 more damage
:: 231/14 * 2.25 * 4

10 auto attacks (2 removed due to swapping Idols and subsequent GCD) = 165 more damage
:: 231/14 * 10

1 full duration Rip = 55.4 more damage
:: 231 * 0.24

1 Mangle = 26.4 more damage
:: 231/14 * 1.6

Total increased DPS in a 12sec cycle is therefore: 395.3/12 = 32.9dps

Now go back to a time when FAP was "almost" balanced: the Staff of Beasts. If the staff was re-evaluated for base form DPS, you get an increase of 73 AP. For a 12sec DPS cycle:

4 shreds = 46.9 more damage
10 auto attacks = 52.1 more damage
1 full duration Rip = 17.5 more damage
1 Mangle = 8.3 more damage

Total increased DPS in a 12sec cycle is therefore: 124.8/12 = 10.4dps

In a time when fully consumabled Rogues can push over 1200 DPS and full consumabled Druids can barely get 1000*, 10-33 extra DPS before armor would not "overpower" us (whatever that even means).

Don't spew forth Blizzard-forum retardation without backing it up with numbers, please.

* http://www.juggernautguild.com/wws/w...822/index.html

On the flip-side, a difference of 10-33 DPS at those levels is somewhat negligible in and of itself--so, if it wouldn't "overpower" Druids, I doubt it will "underpower" them either.

Comparing AP on weapons to weapon DPS is an interesting excersize given the general intent of the stat on the items, but really it's somewhat apples to oranges. The end result of itemization philosophy is more important, all-around.

One could easily point out that Druid AP generally tends to scale quicker than Rogues due to higher contribution of base stats and HotW... but, again, the end result of DPS is all that matters really.

It's honestly a bit hard to directly compare Druid "weapons" to anything else, because they operate as a 1h class with Rogue-like abilities. This means a Druid doesn't have to dump into +hit like Rogues and thus can stack more AP and Crit as a general rule. With such considerations to make, it's quite hard just to look at the base weapon AP and draw any meaningful conclusions.

One simple point about druids getting more from strength than rogues:

They paid for that bonus. It cost talent points. If you then scale strength on gear down to be "fair" you've simply made druids get 56 talent points, instead of the 61 talent points everyone else gets.

Those talent points have to give some advantage, similiar to rogues getting an advantage from those +5% critical hit talent points they spent. You don't see me asking for rogue gear to get less critical strike rating, do you?

Edit: In other words, if the +20% strength is overpowered, fix the talent itself, you don't rescale every epic item in the game. Why doesn't anyone mention the +10% bonus damage from find weakness? There are so many modifers that I simply can't compare myself (a druid) to a class whose bonuses I know little about. (I hope I got find weakness right!)

Plenty of other classes also get 2AP per strength, most other stats interact differently with the various classes too - the value of +hit to those dual wielding for example or +def to warrior/paladin tanks as opposed to druids. Varying stat impact is how Blizzard have deliberately designed the game, the problem here is that a core 5 point talent is dependent on itemisation to carry out part of its intended role and that itemisation is, at various stages, significantly lacking.

Back on the original topic of Feral AP as a mechanic though I'd personally argue this is not necessarily a problem - as above, the impact of stats on the different classes varies quite wildly but what matters is the actual results produced at the end of the process. In this case that's the amount of dps being done which, at present, is generally considered to be pretty acceptable given the amount of utility provided by druids in other forms. As pointed out above should this change in future that would be grounds for a reassesment.

Sure, the feral weapon AP could be buffed up however that would either entail a small but general buff to druids or simply a rebalancing of druid combat mechanics shifting increased importance to the weapon slot (adding dps onto the weapon, removing net benefit across the board otherwise to keep the end outcome the same) which I don't personally see any particular reason to do.

What is with the facination with just one single slot? Unless you take gear+talent+synergy into account, you are comparing to apples to oranges. What's next? Should I demand the same DPS upgrade a hunter gets when upgrading from a ilvl 100 to ilvl 120 bow?

Feral druid gear, IMHO, works more like caster gear. Ferals have a static DPS for their weapons, just like casters have a static damage for their spells. It doesn't matter if they get +23 damage from a new staff or a new ring, it's +23 damage.

Umm.. yes? A hunter, upgrading to a 151 iLevel bow from a 125 iLvl gains 12.5dps. A warrior upgrading to a 151 iLvl bow from a 125 iLvl also gains 12.5 dps.

A Druid upgrading to a 128 iLevel weapon from a 115 iLevel weapon gains 6 dps. A Warrior upgrading to a 128 from 115 gains 7.8 dps.

My "facination" (...?) with the single slot is that the weapon slot is the only one which decreases in relative power as item level increases. Our chest pieces increase in power just as linearly as other classes' chest pieces do; the allocation of their points fits. To anyone who argues that it is acceptable that our weapons do not scale properly, why stop there? Why not say that our chest, leg and shoulder pieces should also decrease in relative power as well? How can you say one but not the other?

Casters don't lose spell damage when putting on class buffs (Frost Armor) whereas Druids do (Cat Form causes a loss in effective weapon DPS).

Because it only matters if your DPS experiences an accompanying relative downward scaling. This, you have yet to prove.

Also, slippery slope is a mediocre argument. "Improper weapon scaling is okay" is not logically equivalent to "improper gear scaling is okay in all slots."

But they're losing out on all that sweet sweet caster weapon white DPS when they're stuck at siege range casting! And what about those poor hunters; they don't get any use from their big spears at ALL!

I apologize for that, but it really is hard to take this argument entirely seriously when you use hyperbole like that. You've shown that Druid weapons don't scale damage as well as they do for Rogues, Warriors, Shamans, and Paladins. You have not (yet) shown that druids overall do not scale at the same rate as other melee classes.

Realistically, Feral AP is basically identical in concept to all the new caster weapons of BC, where +spellpower is given a colossal discount because the base DPS of the items is converted into spellpower in a fairly direct way. (DPS converted * 3.5 = spellpower, roughly.) We don't say casters are being unfairly punished on itemization of their weapons into DPS, though. If anything, we see this as a tremendous bonus because for the longest time a caster's weapon was just a small part of his total power, and now this is no longer true. As well, we know from long experience all the many, many little % bonuses that a caster's damage is passed through before you see the final numbers.

"Do druids scale worse than other classes?" is the real crux of the issue. My gut says their stat advantages and relatively light reliance on "extra" stats (like %hit for all DW melee classes and spellpower/int/etc for Ret Paladins and to a lesser extent Enhance Shamans) currently can close to even out the losses from strict weapon damage across a whole suit at a given level of itemization.

If you can show otherwise, I'm all ears.

My guess would be that the effect shown by the OP is caused by Blizzard 'reverse engineering' towards the item level starting from the FAP they wish to assign. I'm fairly sure that when the weapons get designed, the FAP is the starting point. But a weapon needs to have a DPS value; there is no 0 or Not Applicable or such.

Meanwhile those posters pointing out that the scaling of FAP + weapon dps in a vacuum is meaningless, got it right. It sits roughly at the level of 'shaman talent lightning mastery reduces cast times twice as much as mage talent improved fireball'. It means nothing without taking the whole class and all its talents, abilities and spells into account.

I think the problem with that mindset is that the ensuing conversation would become so complex and muddled as to be meaningless. As for the original post, it could be a problem, it could not be. It would certainly be more logical to reduce the arbitrariness of FAP values and then nerf or buff druids according to how well we scale rather than slapping some random value onto items.

This only directly correlates to untalented white damage. We all know that different classes have a different % of there total output from white dmg. Until you show the delta from weapons for 2-3 different classes with total DPS output (including talents, and abilties), with equal tier gear, you are just spinning your wheels.

No class gets perfectly itemized gear, because perfectly itemized gear is horrible to upgrade and tends to be useful for far too long.

Druids get less dps out of their main hand slot, but I remain utterly unconvinced that their global scaling with the increase of stats is wacked.

Bingo. Some quirk of how feral items scale has zero to do with how the classes' dps actually scales. Paladin weapons scale better than Druids, OMG! Paladin dps must be overpowered (ha). Your logic is flawed. There is no evidence presented in this thread that kitty druids have a scaling problem. As others have mentioned, items are only part of the dps puzzle; you're missing some pieces. It's really not worth discussing at this point.

... bear dps ...

Right. The fact that I am swinging a 2h is most of what keeps my threat competitive. That and mangle crits. Lacerate compares with sunder armor, maul with heroic strike. Revenge blows me away, warrior HS 50% more often than I maul, and my guild MT averages shield slam threat better than my non-crit mangles.

Back to topic, given an particular amount of item points spent in a comparably efficient manner, the feral will rack up more ap/crit and need less hit than other melee classes.

However, feral gear is carrying about a 15-20% nerf from armor/int/sta. Perhaps a 10-15% nerf on no-int items, all 3 of them. I'm not real strong on item building theory, more detailed info would be great. That's not a minor penalty, and then we have to turn that AP into dps. Something ferals are notoriously bad at doing.

This is still irrelevant when comparing direct weapon DPS issues. Having 2h weapon DPS while tanking/basically having a shield equipped is a bit strange.

(Although, to the support of people saying "it really doesn't matter", your points about Warriors doing more TPS despite to fact that the Druid weapon is higher DPS are as valid as the people saying that Druid FAP/weapon DPS scaling really has little to do with the end result of relative Catform DPS.)

Pre-TBC I spent a while writing excessivly long (and in retrospect, incredibly stupid) essays about how Shadow Priests' poor scaling made it impossible to balance them, and how this was an issue that critically needed to be fixed.

The problem is, this isn't how Blizzard thinks. They've never really been concerned with balancing at more than one gear level, and considering that it's nearly impossible to do even that, they may be right to do that. If something is not a problem now, they will almost never make a change simply because it may become a problem in the future. While as players it'd be nice to know that we won't have a period where we're underpowered before they finally fix issues a few months later, from thier perspective, why would they spend time tweaking minor issues which may be irrelevant sometime in the future? Far better to fix current issues as quickly as possible (which apparently isn't very quickly) than to delay and possibly create new current issues by worrying about future ones.

In this case, Feral weapons may well be scaling too poorly. However, that isn't something that Blizzard has ever shown signs of caring about. What they care about is if Feral Druid damage is below where it should be (which could be fixed in many ways, and if it isn't, will it become too low in the immediate future.

You are assuming all I do is sit back and shoot, which represents a huge loss of DPS for me in the first place. (nevermind the weapon damage based abilities hunters have) It's as pointless as talking about feral druids melee dps in caster form.

So? Given your conscious decision of ignoring all the counterpoints presented so far, and your unwillingness to discuss feral druid mechanics that make them scale as well (if not better) than other melee classes. Your post is nothing but a longwinded "QQ woe-is-me" rant.

The basic problem with this thread is that it is trying to single out feral AP on weapons as an exact source.

Weapons are just another part of gear. You can't single out one item and say "this item doesn't scale as well in the long run", and you're doing even MORE than that in saying that FAP, one single constituent which we don't even know how they are calculating, doesn't scale as well. It just doesn't work like that, and as someone just pointed out, each individual class tends to fluctuate as blizzard sort out issues rather than all being on a flat curve that slowly increases all the time.

So, the quick summary of the thread so far:

1. Feral Weapons are getting less iLevel value than comparable weapons for other classes.
2. #1 doesn't matter because items aren't balanced, classes are, included talents, etc. What matters is the end of the day dps/heal/etc result vis-a-vis other classes.

So lets add in another data point, to address, partially, the objection raised in point #2.

Example: PvP Gear/Weapons

I'll have to search for the thread that addressed this, but using iLevels, I remember it being shown that Druid PvP gear was given 20% less stamina than would be expected; i.e. it was under iLevel budget compared to ALL the other Gladiator sets. The easy answer to this was that Druids were given gear that would EQUAL other classes "IF" they had the Heart of the Wild Talent.

Similarly, PVP/Gladiator weapon dps was innately less and a druid HAD to have the +10% damage talent in order to get EQUAL dps to other classes.

So, now you have not just 1 item, but an entire "armor" set that appears to be unfair.

Here is a link to the thread previously discussing the FAP issue, and the numbers re: druid pvp items.

A thread full of druids. (Formerly "The point of Feral Attack power?")

Overall, I think the response "Druids are fine now, so shut up unless you can do more math, factor in talents, etc. to show us that you aren't relatively equal to a pure dps class" misses the point. The OP's point, as far as I can tell is: "Druids get items that are under iLevel budget compared to other classes and this is NOT fair." I couldn't agree more with that sentiment. If folks want to think its pure QQ, ask yourselves if you would want underbudget items and want to just "trust" that the developers have already balanced feral items around the fact that feral talents/class skills are so OP that they make up for the underbudget items and at the end of the day leave ferals in a 'relatively' balanced position vis-a-vis other pure classes.